Text Box: THE FLOOR ABOVE by Cheryl Quinlan  I’ve always been able to feel and sense and yes sometimes see things others can’t; a sort of sixth sense and I’ve always been just a little afraid.  I used to do a lot of business travel and on one of my trips I was scheduled to go to Douglas, Arizona.  I opted to stay in a grand old newly renovated hotel in the middle of town. The lobby was exquisite with high ceilings, chandeliers and velvet gold-gilded turn of the century furniture.  I remember the old-style switchboard and the many plugs and wires needed to transfer calls to each room; I remember insisting I get a room with a view and the argument the desk clerk tried to give me; I remember the puzzled look of the elevator operator when I told him I wanted the third floor and I remember the room.  It was directly at the end of the hallway.  It took me about four trips to unload my vehicle what with the training materials and all before I finally settled down and took a look at my surroundings.  The room was stark in contrast to the ornate lobby and elevator.  In fact, it was downright plain; no pictures, two small thin towels, no T.V. and simplistic furniture, done in white with a red carpet that had a big dark stain on it.  It also had a door that didn’t lock properly. The view was just over the top of the building next to the hotel. I worked on my presentation late into the evening and spoke with my husband on the phone.  I remember complaining about the people above me who were moving furniture across the floor and all the walking noise from overhead.  After propping a chair against the door to keep it shut, I went to bed.  It was sometime after midnight when it started.  Text Box: I don’t remember if it was the smell of cigarette smoke or the ringing of the telephones in the rooms on both sides of mine that woke me up. But I was scared and that old sixth sense kicked in.  As I laid hidden in the covers, afraid to move, I heard knocking on doors up and down the hallway.  I “felt” someone outside my door and I heard the doorknob rattle.  The Shinning came to mind and I suddenly remembered why the hallway seemed so familiar; it looked like the one in the movie.  I was almost paralyzed with fear.  When I finally got up the nerve to go into the bathroom, I didn’t touch the shower curtain-I was afraid to- and when I  went back to bed, I stepped around that large dark stain on the red carpet.  Sometime during the night I finally fell into a fitful sleep.          Bright and early the next morning my husband called and asked if the ghost had bothered me.  Surprised, I asked "what ghost?" to which he told of a tale of my hotel being haunted.  Apparently someone was killed in one of the rooms, the body found the next day in the shower. The ghost was legendary but I had never heard of it.  He said he knew if he had told me the night before that I wouldn’t have stayed in the hotel.  He was right.  In a panic, I called to the desk and ordered the elevator up to my floor and asked them to wait if I wasn’t there.  What took four trips up, took only one trip down. I chewed out the desk clerk, who said there weren’t any calls into the hotel that night, and the elevator captain for not warning me.  It was when I hit the parking lot and started counting floors that I stopped dead in my tracks.  One, two, three….One, two, three.  Some stranger asked if I was all right.   When I told him I was on the third floor of the hotel and heard walking and furniture moving above me and there was no one above me; there was no fourth floor. He said they never put anyone on the third floor. He said I must have been mistaken because the floor was kept empty. There wasn’t anyone there. I remember sitting in my car staring at the room I was in, just over the top of the building next door.  I remember seeing an outline of someone standing in the window looking back at me.  I remember being afraid…I remember being very afraid. —Cheryl Quinlan